High Potential for Whiteleg Shrimp Farming in Tra Vinh

VIET NAM - According to Sub-Department of Aquaculture in Tra Vinh province, up to now, in the locality, more than 2,100 households bred 588 million of whiteleg shrimp seed on the area of 1,190 hectares.

That farming area yielded 1,400 MT of commercial shrimp. Compared to the same period of 2012, the figures reported the increase of 12-fold in farming area, 12.3-fold in seed production and 34.6-fold in output. Whiteleg shrimp farming area is expanded fast because the disease hits black tiger shrimp farming area heavily, reports VASEP.

One farmer in the province showed that in two recent farming crops, his black tiger shrimp farming area was ravaged by the disease. Thus, he shifted to rear 500,000 whiteleg shrimp seed on the area of 10 hectares in this crop. After three month farming, he harvested over 10 MT of commercial shrimp that fetched him about VND100 million and compensated for the loss from black tiger shrimp farming.

In the locality, more and more farmers shifted to farm whiteleg shrimp instead of black tiger shrimp. Farmers can earn high profit from farming whiteleg shrimp because whiteleg shrimp is stocked with high density, time for farming is short while it selling price is high.

In Cau Ngang district of Tra Vinh province, in 2013, the local authorities plan to change 30 per cent of black tiger shrimp farming area into area for whiteleg shrimp farming thanks to the advantage of whiteleg shrimp farming.

Recently, the province plans to carry out trial model of applying nano technology in whiteleg shrimp farming on industrial scale in a bid to minimize loss in aquaculture. After that, they will evaluate and consider to popularize the model on the whole province.